Epub – What the Media Isn’t Telling You (Part 3)

For the last two weeks, we’ve been talking about how media coverage around self-publishing can be misleading, since the average person who self-publishes doesn’t experience overnight success.  This is the third post on this subject, in which I’ll be asking these five self-published author exactly what it’s like to self-publish and sell a book. [Read the first post, read the second post]

I asked each author the same few questions for today’s post. You can read their answers below their website and book info.

Amy Bennett
Her book: Entangled
Websites: www.EntangledBook.com and www.PermissionToPeruse.com

Sarah:How did you handle the cover? Did you design it? Did you get someone else to do it? 

Amy: I had an idea of what I wanted for the cover.  I looked through stock photos but didn’t see anything my ideal fit exactly.  I sent the ideas I had and the concept of the book to MOD. Melissa took original photos and put it together.  I’m very happy I left it in a professional’s hands.

Sarah: What about the interior layout? Did you design it? Did you get someone else to do it? 

Amy: MOD also handled designing the interior layout.  It’s one of my favorite parts of the book.  She is smart about fonts and layouts and did things like original, creative section breaks I would never have thought about.

Sarah: Lastly, who about choosing a title and editing the book? Did you have friends help? Or hire a service?

Amy: The title was probably the easiest decision I made.  I wanted something short yet something that encapsulated the message of the book.  I liked Entangled because you feel the drama and wonder what is happening and it comes from a verse that is related to the topic.  It also plays off the current popular Disney movie Tangled.  And it makes a great Twitter hash tag.

MOD also handled the editing.  She would print and edit it by hand and then scan in all the edited pages and send me a download link.  I then printed the scanned pages and made the edits to the book locally.  How that worked was a big question mark for me at the beginning when you have so many people working virtually but MOD had it down to a science and it was seamless.

Brandon Clements
His book: Every Bush Is Burning
Website: www.EveryBush.com and www.BrandonClements.com

Sarah: How did you handle the cover? Did you design it? Did you get someone else to do it? 

Brandon: One of my good friends, Kent Bateman, is an incredibly talented designer and he graciously did the design for me, so I was very blessed in that regard. Beyond blessed, actually—because I have so many talented friends who did so much work to help, all for free. Stephen Bateman built an awesome website for the book, and Jeremy and Austin from Dust Of The Ground shot the amazing trailer on the front page of the website. I have amazing friends.

Sarah: What about the interior layout? Did you design it? Did you get someone else to do it? 

Brandon: Because my book is a novel and needed a very simple layout, I did it myself. This is actually my biggest regret of the process, not because it looks bad, but because I ran into more headaches with this part of the process than any other. Oh—it was a nightmare. (The formatting would randomly change while converting the file to PDF). I finally figured it out—but it was awful. I still shudder when I think about how frustrated I was…I should have heeded what I read about word processors not being ideal for detailed interior layout.

If I can afford it, next time I will pay someone to do that part.

Sarah: Lastly, who about choosing a title and editing the book? Did you have friends help? Or hire a service?

Brandon: The title…I read a quote in a book one day, and the specific wording wasn’t in the quote, but the metaphor just kind of jumped out and grabbed me. I asked a few friends and they loved it, so I was happy with it.Editing…I did have a lot of help from friends along the way who read drafts and gave very helpful feedback. But I also hired Andy Meisenheimer, a professional freelance editor that I found online somehow through The Editorial Department. We started emailing back and forth, hit it off, and I ended up working with him for 2 years.I’ve often told him that now I am genuinely embarrassed to think about what the book would have been like if I hadn’t met him. Working with him was such a good decision, and I encourage everyone I talk to about self-publishing to seriously consider getting professional editing help. Because, let’s face it—none of us are as brilliant as we’d like to think, and having an un-biased, skilled, sometimes cruel editor make you cry by ripping your writing to pieces is, if not fun, incredibly helpful. We come out much better writers because of it.

Mike Hall
His book: Jigsaw
Website: www.JigsawBook.com and facebook.com/mikeisspeaking

Sarah:How did you handle the cover? Did you design it? Did you get someone else to do it? 

Mike: I’m a graphic designer in another life, so that one was easy to knock out myself.

Sarah: What about the interior layout? Did you design it? Did you get someone else to do it? 

Mike: I sent Pages docs and high-res JPEGs of the illustrations to the gal who did the layout. You probably know her, since you both live in Michigan. She was a real trooper with all my adjustments. Utilized Dropbox for this process, which made it super simple.

Sarah: Nice. A fellow mitten dweller. Lastly, who about choosing a title and editing the book? Did you have friends help? Or hire a service?

Mike: I wanted something simple and memorable. I wanted the title to be somewhat masculine sounding. And I needed a title that was atypical for a teen book. I was not about to call it something like, “The Youngster’s Guide to a Super Lifetime!”